


Waiting For You

by Marvel_Mania



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Healing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvel_Mania/pseuds/Marvel_Mania
Summary: It should have been like any other mission. The soldier had been given his target and it was simply a matter of taking her out. He was meant to eliminate Margret Carter but he couldn’t. He couldn’t and he didn’t know why.(After the soldier failed to eliminate his target, Peggy, his target helps free him and helps him remember who he is.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	Waiting For You

It should have been like any other mission. He had been given his target and it was simply a matter of taking her out. She was an older woman by the name of Margret Carter who’s health was starting to fail but the soldier was told not to underestimate her. From the intel he had been given she had started digging into Shield, suspecting that things are not what they are meant to be. She was a threat to Hydra so she had to be eliminated.

The soldier watched her for three days. She occasionally went out but no one visited her. He had followed her to a cemetery where she had put flowers at a grave belonging to Daniel Sousa, her late husband the soldier assumed. On the night of the third day, he decided he had enough information.

Margret, the target, lived alone and it was easy enough to break in without a sound. It wasn’t until he got close when he froze. Looking at her this close he realized that he couldn’t kill her. He couldn’t kill her and he didn’t know why. He’s sure that he’s killed people older than her and some that were probably still classified as children but he couldn’t kill her.

In her older age and failing health it took her a moment to realize that someone was in the room with her. When she does, the atmosphere changes and she gets this look and the soldier knows that look. He’s seen it before directed at himself and - and someone else he can’t quite remember. Her voice is filled with borderline amazement when she finally speaks. “Bucky,” she asked but got no response. “Sargent Barnes,” she tries again firmly.

Then an image flashes through the soldier’s head. He’s strapped to a table. He hears talking and it’s him. “Sargent. 32557038,” he was saying over and over. Then he’s back in the dark room with his target. She’s stood up without him knowing and then she’s placed a hand on his face. The soldier waits for pain that is always associated with touch but none comes.

“How is this possible. You fell from the train,” she said and there were tears in her eyes. Another flash of an image and it was in fact him falling. “Bucky.”

She’s looking at him. He sees a flash of the woman before him but she’s young and then it’s back to normal. “Who the hell is Bucky,” he grits out.

“You are,” she said simply as if it were a simple fact she was sharing with him and maybe it was. “You are James Buchanan Barnes.”

They stay there, the target’s hand on the soldier’s face, in silence for a long time. The soldier has failed his mission since he can not eliminate the target. The target does something the soldier has never experienced. The hand moves from his face, he waits for the sharp pain of a slap that is inevitable, but instead, he is wrapped in her arms. He doesn’t believe that he has ever experienced this before and then his face is wet.

He is malfunctioning. First, he was unable to complete his mission and now he is crying. He should go to his handler and tell them so that he can be reset but he doesn’t want that and that’s another sign that he was malfunctioning. He should not want anything. He is meant to be a tool used to shape the future with no desire of his own but he wants. More specifically he doesn’t want to go to his handler. He wants to stay with the target, Margret.

“Who sent you, Bucky,” she whispered into his neck.

It took him a moment to formulate an answer. “Alexander Pierce is my handler. He is the leading head of Hydra,” he eventually says and his voice his ruff from never using it. It feels almost foreign to speak.

“We must go then,” she said. “We have been compromised.” She took his hand, his flesh hand, and led him to the garage. “In,” she said as she climbed into the driver’s side so the soldier went to the passenger side. She made a phone call but it was brief. While she drove, Margret turned on the radio and it played a tune that the soldier recognized. He was in the living room of a small apartment dancing with another man. The man was small and skinny and his cheeks flushed as if tired from the exertion.

He was shaken from his thoughts, memories, when the car stopped and Margret got out. He hadn’t been told to get out so he stayed. Seeing that he wasn’t moving, Margret went back and took his hand to lead him into a building. It is a building he was fairly certain he was once stored in but he can’t be sure. She strolled in, still in her nightgown, holding the soldier’s hand. No one stopped them but they only got a few stares.

She took them to the top floor where they were met by two men and a woman. The soldier recognized the woman. She had red hair and was staring at him. The soldier stepped in front of Margret to protect her. “Bucky, we are safe here. I need to talk to the men. Natasha will stay with you until I return,” she told him gently. She guided him to sit down before going into an office. He tried to listen but the office was apparently impervious to his enhanced hearing.

The soldier looked at the woman, Natasha Margret had called her but that didn’t seem correct, and then he placed her. “Natalia Alianovna Romanoff. I trained you,” he said but there was uncertainty.

“In the Red Room,” she confirmed. “You also almost killed me two years ago.”

The soldier looked at his hands for a moment. “I don’t remember,” he said softly.

She kept her distance and they waited until Margret and the two men left the room. “Code name, mission report, and current handler,” one of the men said. The one who spoke was in all black clothing and had an eye patch.

“Winter Soldier. Eliminate Margret Carter, mission failed. Alexander Pierce,” the soldier said.

“What is your name,” the other man asked. This one was slightly balding and in a nice suit but not nice enough to gain unwanted attention. He was dressed to blend in.

“Winter Soldier,” he repeated. The soldier did not have a name because he was simply a tool.

“Hydra has infiltrated our ranks. It’s time to clean house, Nicolas,” Margret said.

“You are right but what of the Winter Soldier he—“

“His name is James Barnes,” Margret said firmly as she cut the man, Nicolas, off.

Nicolas continued after it seemed she wasn’t going to say any more. “He has been credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.”

“For God’s sake, Nicolas, do you really think he has had a choice? He has been tortured by Hydra for seventy years. He has been a prisoner of war for longer than anyone else. I may not have been able to save Steve but I damn well will save Bucky. I owe Steve that much,” she said fiercely.

“Peggy,” Natalia started carefully, “he hasn’t had a choice in any of what has happened to him but that doesn’t change the fact that he is a threat. Your house has been compromised. Allow myself and one other extremely trusted Shield member to accompany you and Mr. Barnes to a safe house where you may stay until Hydra has been neutralized. We may also ask Tony Stark to come look at Mr. Barnes’ arm.”

After considering it for a moment Margret, Peggy, nodded. “Very well,” she said a little stubbornly.

The safe house was nice enough, nicer than most the soldier had stayed in, but most importantly it was secure. The soldier had done three perimeter checks. Two of his own and then another after the new agent (Clint Barton, codename - Hawkeye) had done one. He did not know Barton’s level of skill. He only trusted Natalia’s abilities because she had been trained in the Red Room and had taken it down.

The soldier didn’t sleep for two days before Peggy had gently placed a hand on his face, as she had done the night he had planned on eliminating her, and gently told him to sleep. “I’ll keep these two in line but you need your rest, Bucky,” she had said. After that, she had been able to convince him to change out of his tactical gear.

It was even longer before he spoke without being asked a direct question. Barton was asleep and Natalia was doing a perimeter check when he initiated a conversation. “Who was I? I get flashes of images I don’t always understand. Who am I,” he softly asked Peggy.

“You are James Buchanan Barnes but everyone called you Bucky. You were a sergeant in the 107th during World War II. We ourselves were not extremely close, only meeting a few times, but we had someone we both cared for very much.”

Two images flashed through his mind. The first being of a small blond man with a split lip and determined blue eyes. The second was of the same man but he was tall and muscular though he still had the determined look in his blue eyes. “Who was he?”

“Oh dear,” Peggy said and she looked almost sad. “Steve Roger. He was your best friend since you two were only boys. Not long after you shipped off, he was following behind you. He saved you from Hydra once. It was after that we met for the first time. He stormed miles behind enemy lines by himself to save you. I don’t believe I had ever seen him as broken up about anything than he was about your death. It was less than two weeks later he was crashing his plane to save the world.”

“Steve,” he said as if testing the name. “I knew him.”

“You did,” she said lightly.

The conversation ended when Natalia entered the room again. That night he dreamt of Steve saving him. He dreamt of screaming for him years later while being tortured but not knowing exactly who he was screaming for. He had disappeared into the night for a few hours but returned before a search party had been sent out looking for him. He had gone out to get three journals, pens, pencils, and sticky notes. He had already started writing in the first one before returning to the safe house.

The first notebook had been filled within a week. Glimpses and flashes of memories he once had but Hydra had taken away. The second notebook he used for Steve and his life before the war, it was taking the longest to fill. The third was of his victims and missions he had gone on, that had filled quickly and he had needed to get another for the same purpose.

The four were still at the safe house two months after arriving. The soldier had started tentatively going by Bucky since he now remembered that he had once been, and hoped to one day be again, Bucky Barnes. He now called Natalia by her chosen name of Natasha. She had told him about how he had trained some of those in the Red Room. She also told him about how she had dismantled the Red Room when she was a teenager but that she hadn’t started working for Shield until a few years later. Barton was the one he was most wary of even though he knew Natasha was more deadly. He hadn’t known or met Barton at all during his very long life and he didn’t trust new people.

About a month and a half after they arrived, Tony Stark had stopped by and taken a look at his arm. “Advanced but not as good as it could be. Once Fury is done with his Hydra hunt, I want you to come to Stark Tower and we can improve upon this. It’s heavy, loud, and the edges are likely to get caught on clothing,” Stark had listed off. “This is the most visible thing but I believe they implanted programming into your head. That will be harder to fix but I can.”

Bucky noticed that Stark liked to talk a lot, much like his father had. When Tony was leaving, Bucky apologized. “For what,” Stark had asked.

Natasha and Barton were around the edges of the room incase something had happened to either Tony or Bucky. “I think I killed your parents,” Bucky said looking down at his hands.

Stark made an almost strangled noise. He had left without saying anything else but acted as if nothing had happened the next time they saw each other until the end of Tony inspecting the arm some more. “It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t in control. I would have kicked your ass if you had hurt Pegs, through” he had said and that was that as if it were that simple and maybe it was.

It was six months after the soldier, Bucky he corrected himself, had failed to eliminate Peggy Carter before Bucky was technically allowed to leave the safe house and another year after that before Hydra had been eradicated. By the time Hydra was gone, Bucky had managed to mostly reclaim his own mind and body. Stark had wanted to improve upon Bucky’s metal arm but he wanted it gone. Stark had almost protested but Peggy supported Bucky in this and Tony wasn’t going to fight Peggy. After many surgeries to get as much of it out as they could without seriously risking Bucky health, his body and brain were as free from Hydra as they could ever truly be now.

After Hydra had been dismantled and eliminated, Bucky had decided to travel to try to learn more about himself. He called Peggy and Natasha a lot. He had even formed a tentative friendship with Barton. The day before returning to DC he had had a breakdown when he was told how far Peggy had deteriorated, letting all of the now jagged pieces that had once made whole cut into him. He had been on a secluded beach when it had happened.

He had collapsed in the sand and cried. He cursed a god he wasn’t sure he believed in anymore, the world, Hydra (and the fact that even though Hydra was gone, goddamn Nazis were still around), himself, and Steve because Steve was gone and Bucky was left in the future alone to try to reconcile all of the death and pain he had been forced to cause. He cursed because the only person who knew him before he had been turned into a monster might not recognize him when he returned. It was cruel, Bucky though, that as he regained his memories, Peggy lost her’s. He was alone.

When he returned to DC, Brooklyn holding too many ghosts and broken dreams, Fury had offered him a job for the third time. The first had been when he was fairly certain that Bucky wouldn’t suddenly turn on them and then second being before Bucky had left to travel. Bucky turned him down all three times but had said that he owed Fury a few favors whenever he saw fit to call them in within reason.

Fury hadn’t imprisoned Bucky when he had the chance, had helped him stay a free man when various alphabet agencies thought he should be prosecuted for all Hydra had made him do. Fury had worked out a very under the table deal that offered Bucky immunity for his part in Hydra by helping Shield dismantle it.

Money wasn’t a thing that Bucky would need to worry about in this lifetime or the next. Fury had given him a quarter of all Hydra’s finances that they had found, even a fourth was a frankly alarmingly high number, and he was able to get access to his savings which had been making money for over half a century and the government owed him a fuck ton of pension.

He had stayed in DC for a while with Peggy before deciding that he missed the city. Brooklyn was still out of the question for now but New York was a big city and it had once been home. He chose to move to Manhattan. Tony was in Manhattan and he liked Tony well enough to see him once or twice a week. He also made it a point to see Peggy on weekends even though the round trip was roughly eight hours.

He ran in the mornings, not being able to sleep too long without seeing the faces of his victims. The first time he had gone on a run, he had fallen flat on his ass because of the change of gravity from having no left arm. After the first time, he had relearned how to run well.

Not long after he returned to New York. The media learned that Sargent Barnes, yes that one, was alive and living in Manhattan. Paparazzi had tried to get a photo of him for months after it was known he was alive but he had been a covert operative for longer than most of them had been alive so it wasn’t too hard to avoid the press. He had done a few interviews for educational purposes but he made sure never to talk about his time as the soldier or about how Steve’s and his relationship had been more than platonic. He also wasn’t allowed to have a twitter because he had some very colorful language when it came to the goddamn modern Nazis.

The Nazis were his least favorite thing about the future, aside from not having Steve. He liked the future well enough if he could get past the loneliness. He liked to watch street artists because they reminded him of Steve and he couldn’t help but wonder how different their lives would have been if they had been born now. They wouldn’t have had to hide their relationship.

That was one of his favorite things about the future, the pride and overall expectance of differences. He wasn’t naive about the fact that bigots, racists, homophobes, and sexist idiots were still around but now he was able to punch them square in the nose if he wanted. There had been nothing he or Steve could have done in the thirties but if Bucky saw someone causing trouble for a couple of fellas or ladies he wouldn’t hesitate to step in.

After enough time, Bucky was able to find a routine that he liked a lot. He was able to interact with enough people to feel not as alone but not. Too many as to feel overwhelmed. Even though money wasn’t an issue, Bucky started working at a small, local art store. Even though he knew Steve wasn’t waiting for him, wouldn’t be at the apartment no matter how much Bucky wished he would be, Bucky bought art supplies that would never be used. He bought sketchbooks, brushes, charcoals, and even a few canvases.

“Your Stevie an artist,” Nancy, the older woman who owned the shop with her husband, asked. She was kind, took a liking to Bucky and she called him a flirt. He would always smile and lay on the charm heavily. She would laugh and her husband, Alan, had once said that if they weren’t happily married they’d both be trying to get a piece of him.

Bucky had talked in loose generalizations. They didn’t seem to realize that Bucky was one of the most, if not the most, famous assassins throughout history. They didn’t seem to know about his past or Steve. Bucky always called Steve ‘Stevie’ and only talked about the memories he held close to his heart. “How’d you know,” he asked lightly.

“You always buy these nice supplies but you never use them. You never have smudges of charcoal or color on your hand or face. It only makes since that Stevie is an artist,” Nancy said.

“Were you a spy before you opened the store,” Bucky teased.

“You should bring them around some time,” Nancy said. Bucky had smiled and nodded even as he felt a pang in his chest.

•••

It wasn’t perfect, Bucky still had a not insignificant number of bad days, but he was making do with what life had dealt him. Tony had helped him find a good therapist and she helped him when he was having one of his not so good days. He had been in New York for a little over two years now. He didn’t live life like a nun but he also hadn’t been in a real relationship. He refused to think about how all the people he had been with had blond hair and fairly stubborn blue eyes.

He still visited Peggy on the weekends. He would sit and talk with her or they would just sit in companionable silence. He liked running in DC, he had even made a sort of friend. He would lap and airman, Sam Wilson, on the right three or four times while Sam ran around the large circle once. They had talked after a run one day. “It’s your bed, right,” Sam asked one morning after a short conversation.

They talked about the softness of beds after being in war but Bucky didn’t mention the fact that he didn’t have Steve in bed next to him is what kept him up more often than not. After that, they ran together. Bucky slowing down a lot and Sam having to push himself a little harder to keep up. The next time they saw each other they talked about their partners and it was one of the first times Bucky had actually talked about Steve to another person.

“I lost my wingman, Riley,” Sam said.

“I lost Steve. Or well, he lost me. We lost each other. I fell from a train. He watched me fall and I watched as he got further away. I later found out that the idiot crashed a plane two weeks later. My story isn’t exactly a secret but my biggest regret is that I didn’t die when I fell. Maybe then I wouldn’t have cause all the pain that I did and maybe I’d be with Steve,” he said heavily. He rubbed at his eyes. It felt good to say allowed but it felt raw now.

There were times he was glad that he had survived, he liked the future for the most part, but there were also times he wished he had died or that Hydra had never found him. “Maybe you should come by the VA when you get a chance,” Sam had offered with a warm smile.

Bucky shook himself and smiled back. He hadn’t planned on going to a meeting but he found himself there the next day before leaving for New York. After. The first meeting, he found himself going weekly and a friendship started to form between Sam and Bucky. Life continued on.

•••

“The fucking world better be going up in flames,” Bucky muttered. It was some hellish hour in the morning and he had just managed to fall asleep when the goddamn phone that Fury and Tony insisted he get started blaring to alert him that someone was calling him. “What,” he snapped when he finally answered the phone.

“You are going to want to come in. It will be worth your time,” came Fury’s blunt response and then he hung up.

Bucky genuinely considered ignoring the man but he wasn’t one to make idle comments or waste time. So, grudgingly, Bucky dragged himself out of the bed and got dressed. He had already locked the door behind him when he realized his shirt was inside out. Muttering to himself, he simply took his shirt off and fixed it while still standing in the hallway.

Fury met him at the entrance to one of the low profile Shield bases. “What’s going on,” Bucky asked as they walked in.

“It’ll be easier to show you and then explain,” Fury answered evasively.

“I swear to god, if you got me out of bed early than the army did—“ The rest of the threat was lost when they got in a small observance room that was watching a room set up to look like a hospital room from the forties. “Is that Steve?”

“It is. His vitals are all stable. We’re just waiting for him to wake up,” Fury said but he sounded far away.

“How if this possible?”

“You are a world renowned assassin who is over a hundred years old,” Fury said flatly. “You were injected with a knockoff version of Erskine’s formula and Hydra kept you on ice for the better part of seventy years. I assumed if the knockoff kept you alive while you were in cryo than the actual may have been able to keep Steve alive in the arctic.”

“I’m going in there and you better not even think of trying to stop me,” Bucky said and did just that.

•••

Steve woke up, which was unexpected, but the first thing he saw was Bucky’s face, which was even more unexpected. He had only just blinked his eyes open when Bucky was practically on him. Without even a second though, Steve was holding onto Bucky as tightly as he could without hurting him. They were both crying and kissing and holding onto each other for dear life.

It was only after they pulled apart. That Steve noticed the most obvious change to Bucky’s appearance. “You’re missing your arm,” he said dumbly.

“Yeah but now I got you.”

“What happened,” Steve asked.

“A lot but I’ll tell you everything. We’ve got nothing but time, Stevie.”

•••

The future took some adjusting to for Steve but then again he hadn’t been in and out of consciousness while under the ice. Bucky had called in sick for a few days after he had been reunited with Steve. “You’re telling me were in the future,” Steve had asked.

Bucky had a huge smirk. “Yeah and you want to know the best part,” Bucky asked and simply got an eager nod in response. “We don’t have to hid anymore.” Steve looked at him with wide eyes and a disbelieving smile.

Bucky had been honest with Steve about what had happened after he fell off the train. There had been a lot of crying again. They went and saw Peggy, who was thrilled that they were together again. “I always knew that you two were meant to be,” she had said and it had been one of her few good days.

Steve and Bucky both had a lot of baggage each, that didn’t just disappear because they were together again, but it did help. The first time Steve had come home with Bucky he was struck by how much it felt like home even though they weren’t in Brooklyn and it wasn’t the thirties or forties anymore. It was home because Bucky was there.

“When did you get all these art supplies,” Steve asked when they finally made it out of the bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. They had seventy years to make up for.

“I started getting them not long after I moved in. Even though you weren’t here to fill them, it made the place feel a little more right. There are charcoals and different kinds of paints. I don’t entirely know what all I bought, just stuff that I would have back in Brooklyn if we had had the money,” Bucky had said a little sheepishly.

“It’s like you were waiting for me. And to think, I thought I had kept you waiting long enough when I crashed the plane into the arctic,” Steve teased and that had earned him a rather hard swat on the arm.

“Dumb luck. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with more dumb luck than you, you punk,” Bucky had muttered but that earned him a kiss on the temple.

Once Steve had gotten more used to the future, Bucky introduced him to the new people in his life. Nancy and Alan had been thrilled to meet Bucky’s Stevie and had welcomed him with open arms. Sam and Steve got along like a house on fire and Bucky made a mental note not to leave them alone together for too long. Although, Sam really hated now hearing “on your left,” when Steve and Bucky were in DC. Tony and Steve clashed a little when they first met. Howard had apparently compared a young Tony to Steve a lot. Once they had both gotten their head out of their respective asses, they also found the nice rhythm of friendship.

Steve liked Natasha but she scared him some which was smart and Bucky was happy to see his survival instincts _finally_ kick in. Clint and Steve became fast friends. Bucky had watched in an almost fascinated horror when, between the two of them, they had eaten no less then a dozen pizzas. Sure, Steve ate the majority of them and that was understandable given his enhanced metabolism but still twelve pizzas. Twelve.

Steve and Bucky were happy with their little makeshift family of misfits but they always had been. The Howling Commandoes had been a second family for both of them but now they were on their third, only each other being the remnants of their first family. Third times the charm after all.

Destiny, dumb luck, fate, or whatever you wanted to call it was on their side. They had carved out a new life for themselves in the twenty-first century that they could have only dreamed of before the war. Things weren’t prefect, nothing ever was, but they were together and they were working on healing.


End file.
